Could Have Been...
by PikaCheeka
Summary: @_@ An immensely late Mother's Day ditty......Lupin has a few unusual things to say, unfortunately, there seems to be little behind the words...[extremely belated] Almost a PWP it's so short [2 pages]


A/N- I wrote this ages ago

A/N- I wrote this ages ago.....and I just finished it...oh, well, today? SO SORRY DMP! This MEANT to be a birthday fic, but I lost it for a while [somehow called it an English assignment and came a second from throwing it out yesterday]. Well, here it is now. A very very belated Mother's Day/D.M.P.'s B-day fic.

There are two other reasons why I am writing this:

1) Mother's day is just past

2) It's D.M.P.'s birthday and though I bought her a present, I didn't make her a card because I can't draw Lupin [uh oh] and I feel guilty because her sister got a stupid 24-page card from me a month ago.

If you can't guess from there, here. It's a mother fic. It's a Lupin fic. It's a Lupin on Mother's day fic!

Summary-N/A....Rather a PWP

PG for angst.

Dedicated to D.M.P. [obviously] and NOT dedicated to...um....never mind. ^_^; Yes, I know I didn't get it uploaded on your birthday...sorry!

Could Have Been....

by PikaCheeka

The cemetery was silent. It always is, always will be, always was. The sun is fading fast, but the full moon was a week ago, so I am safe for the time being. Just a red glow in the sky, like blood. I self-consciously glanced at the muggle watch I have. It's easier to keep time with. Besides, when you're always wandering, the time is important and rarely at hand. 7:28 PM, Sunday, May 13th. 

I couldn't help myself then, I trotted over to the grave. The reason I was here. This is my...what is it? My twenty-eighth time here. My twenty-eighth Mother's day without a mother. At least not one alive.

I'm still young, barely forty, but everything takes it's toll. Pain and sadness and werewolf blood take their toll well. I look young still, maybe in my early thirties but with graying hair. But my mind is old, my mind is ancient. I have already seen everything there is to see, I know almost all there is to know. I don't even know what keeps me alive sometimes.

But I can never let her know that.

"Hello, Mother..." I said calmly, coming up to the stone.

__

Mary Fairbanks Lupin

There was more. Her date of birth, her date of death, and a Bible verse. I traced my finger along the familiar numbers, not missing the small nick in the corner of the 'D' in December. It had been there as long as I could remember.

My hand flew to my chest when I reached the verse, clutching the silver cross around my neck. All I had left of her now. All I had left of my past life, of the time before I was...changed....I've had it since I turned five. Since my father and mother found me responsible.

I was responsible at an early age. Perhaps that was good, perhaps it wasn't. I never had a childhood, never. But I never had the time for one either.

"I just stopped by to wish you a happy Mother's Day...I know how you love this day."

She did love it. She really did. My father and I used to cook everything for the day. We one time faked it and hired out a house elf to do it. He did a thousand times better, but my mother didn't say anything. She just pretended that we were better, and complained nonstop about how 'elf-food' was awful while I grinned and slipped knuts into the hands of the elf.

There was also the day when it was a full moon that night. She cried that day. She cried every full moon night, but this was the first time she did it in front of me. I don't want to remember.

"I got a job at Hogwarts, you know that, don't you? I have a real paying job, and they even gave me a place to stay. If only you could stop by and see my room sometime, it's no different than my old room." I said suddenly to the grave.

The room I had before my father died of a broken heart twelve years ago. The room I had before I, being the only Lupin left alive, had to sell my house and wander. But I had to act. I had to act for my mother.

At least what I had said so far was truthful. Almost. I had left my Hogwarts job....how many years? Three? Two?

"It seems the days go by so fast...but I no longer have to fear such things. They found a cure for me, Mother, they did! Oh, it's the most awful stuff, but it works, and never again do I have to roam the woods as a wolf. I'm free to be a human again!"

I shuddered, biting back a tear. 

"Remember how I used to be? It's all different now...everything's working out as you promised me so many years ago...Remember? You told me when I was ten that everything always worked out in the end, and to never lose hope. I believed you, Mother, and it's all true...

"Sirius Black, you remember him? He was one of my friends...he got married a few months ago. I'm so happy for him. He was in a deep end too, but now he's out of it.

"And you know how James and Lily got married and had a son named Harry, I told you that, I know. Well, he got the highest scores in the O.W.L. exams....it seems things couldn't be better right now...

"Oh! How could I forget? Remember Lucius? That angry boy? And remember his son? Who's just like him? He's only...fifteen, and he's already been chosen to be the Seeker on the national team. He just has to finish school first and then he's off...

"But, oh, the best thing I already told you. Alas, the cure for lycanthropy. I have never had a better day then when they announced it and I tried it...and it worked. Mother, it worked! I'm saved! And it was all because of your faith." 

A child. I was being a child. I was being the child I never had the chance to be, and never would have the chance to be. Here I was, a grown man, a grown werewolf. Not even a human, but a hated and damned creature. And I was standing beside a grave, telling lies upon lies to my dead mother.

"Everything's great..." I continued for a moment before draining off. I had nothing more to say. There was nothing else that was great that happened. Or nothing else great that didn't happen.

"Everything could be great anyway..." I turned abruptly away and began walking. "Everything could have been great...."

And the sun set. And the werewolf continued his wanderings.


End file.
